We are still two weeks away from the beginning of Advent, but the psalm we will hear this Sunday at Mass is like an announcement of Christmas: “Sing praise to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and melodious song. With trumpets and the sound of the horn sing joyfully before the King, the Lord. The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.” The most beautiful time of the year is approaching.
Editor’s Space
Jorge I. Domínguez-López is the editor-in-chief of The Tablet and Nuestra Voz, the two-award winning newspapers of the Diocese of Brooklyn. Born in Havana, Cuba, Domínguez-López regularly appears on NET-TV’s Currents News and is the co-host of “Al Pan, Pan,” a talk show with Father Tomás del Valle on NET-TV.
Confronting the Secular Trend Of Hispanics in the U.S.
A Pew Research Center study that was released last month has garnered a lot of coverage from both the secular and Catholic press. It found that people who describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” now represent 26 percent of the population. That number was just 17 percent 10 years ago.
The Fall of the Wall — 30 Years Later
This week marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the event that symbolically signaled the end of communism. Between 1917 and 1989, a third of the world’s population lived at some point under a regime that in 72 years produced 100 million deaths, an efficient mass surveillance state apparatus, an all-powerful propaganda system and not much more.
Patriarchs and Sluggers
Like anyone reading the Book of Genesis for the first time, I was amazed when I read as a child Chapter 5, which lists the lifespans of the Old Testament patriarchs. “Methuselah lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years; then he died.” Similar figures were given for Adam, Seth, Mahalalel, Noah …
Between Purgatory And Hell in Syria
We tend to think that in any situation there should be a clear way to decide what we should do. And we want to believe that the right decision will always bring good consequences. But sometimes reality is more complicated than that as the situation in Syria shows.
The Uncrowned King of Poland
Last week, the Vatican announced the approval of a miracle attributed to Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, opening the
path for his beatification. He was the archbishop of Warsaw and Gniezno, and primate of Poland, from 1948 to 1981.
Promoting Unity in the Priest Celibacy Debate
The synod of bishops for the Pan-Amazon region will meet in the Vatican Oct. 6-27. For several months, the Pan-Amazonian synod has been at the center of many debates in the Catholic media and blogosphere.
The Justin Trudeau In All of Us
Justin Trudeau, the young, telegenic Canadian prime minister, last year chastised a young woman who was asking him a question for using the word “mankind.” Trudeau interrupted her and said, “We like to say ‘people-kind,’ not necessarily ‘mankind,’ because it’s more inclusive.”
Trouble Looms With National Debt
You never know how history will judge the time you live in. Will our opinions be relevant a hundred years from now? A thousand years from now? Johann Sebastian Bach was a forgotten musician for almost a century. But suddenly in the 1800s, he was “brought back to life,” and until this day is considered […]
Pope Francis Sees Church’s Future
This past week, Pope Francis visited three very poor countries in Africa: Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius.